Band Geeks
by BandOfTheHawk
Summary: [NoiAo, High School AU, rated M for swearing and eventually NSFW elements.] Aoba Seragaki gets transferred to a prestigious art school, forms a small circle of friends, falls in love, and even joins the band program.
1. First Period

Author's Notes: I'm really excited for this work. It's my second work that is going to be somewhat lengthy and have a number of chapters tied to it (although I really need to quit putting off my first lengthy Berserk fic), so I hope all my followers (love you guys!) will enjoy having a bit more to read than my usual one-shots/lone chapter works/drabbles/whatever. Enjoy!

Crisp, clear Autumn morning, tension high. It was the first day back to school. And as if nothing could be any more unnerving, it was at a new school, no less. Midorijima wasn't known for having many prestigious schools, but this one was pretty "top of the ladder" as they say. Certainly costing a pretty penny from Tae. But in her defense, she was known for treating Aoba to things like this. He had a nice house, food on the table every night, et cetera. The only thing separating him from the average spoiled brat was that Tae wouldn't put up with that kind of attitude. She kept him in line well enough. In any case, after a tense and long enough car ride, Tae and Aoba arrived at MSotA – Midorijima School of the Arts. To gauge the size of the campus, imagine a smaller college campus, still pretty damn large for a high school. It was divided into three sections: the "Lower" School, the "Middle" School, and the "Upper" School. You were, obviously enough, placed in one or the other depending on which year you were in. Aoba faced the most daunting of the three today by being dropped off in front of the main Music, Arts, and Theater wing of the Upper School. It didn't matter that there was a price tag attached to attending the place, high school was high school; You're either popular or a geek there. And Aoba was, more likely than not, going to be placed in the latter category.

Aoba tried to stride with some confidence, although he eventually gave up the ruse once he realized he was alone upon entering the Art section of the M/A/T wing. It was nice, all things considered. The wing was split perfectly into thirds, and the lines were drawn quite clearly upon walking in through the front door. To your left was the Band hallway, which branched off to 3 different practice rooms. In the middle (and as a result, the first room you always walked into before going to one of the thirds of the building) was the Arts hallway where all the paintings were hung and the pottery and such was on clean, white pedestals to be viewed by all who cared enough to look. Finally, to the right was a long, narrow hallway that lead to the Theater third, where the performing arts students worked.

Aoba looked around the Arts hallway worriedly. There wasn't a soul in sight. Even for an expensive school, getting a spot reserved for you was hard with how many students there were. With that knowledge in mind, finding nobody in what was supposedly one of the more populated wings of the school was a scary thought. As he looked around, simultaneously adoring the students' artistic capabilities on display and wondering exactly where the hell everybody was, footsteps behind our protagonist grew louder, slowly but surely. "You lost, man?" a warm voice said from a short distance away. Aoba turned around quickly, somewhat shocked.  
"U-Uh, kinda... Where is everybody?"  
"Auditorium. The theater to our right from the front door. You know your way around already?" said the older man, presumably a staff member of some sort.  
"I'm learning, I guess." Aoba laughed nervously, not sure exactly who he was conversing with.  
"Ah, good. Well, I'm Mr. Haga, the band director. Call me Haga-san." the elder, dressed in full suit and tie, said in his warm tone.  
"I'm Aoba Seragaki. I'm obviously pretty new around here. I have no idea where to go." Aoba scratched his head and laughed again, somewhat embarrassed.  
"I'll walk you over there today so you can get your bearings. You got band first period today? Or at all?" Haga-san inquired.  
"Uh, yeah, first I believe." Aoba said, reaching into the back of his jeans to grab his crumpled up class schedule. "Yeah, first on Mondays and Thursdays."  
"Awesome, it'll be great to have you. What all do you play?"  
"Piano, guitar, a little bass." Aoba responded. "You?"  
"Haha, I'm band director, I've gotta play everything." Haga-san laughed. "Well, we're gonna be late for assembly, let's get going. We can talk more during band."

After the fairly standard issue assembly, Aoba headed back through the Arts hallway to the Band wing. Haga-san waited there by the door with a smile, greeting all of the students happily. After everybody had been greeted, above all the chatter and noise-making the students were doing, Haga-san yelled "BATCAVE."  
Seriously. Everybody but Aoba laughed, repeating "BATCAVE!" to the rest of the hallway and entered into the small practice room at the end of the hall. Aoba looked over to Haga-san with a perplexed look on his face.  
"It's code for 'meeting time.'" Haga-san said, laughing.

Everybody assembled themselves quickly into the "Batcave" as they called it, pairing off into twos and threes and sitting on the floor. Aoba, entering the room last, was alone. From across the room, by the guitar and bass stands against the wall, he received a welcoming look from a guy looking roughly his age with dark bangs down to his chin. Aoba quickly walked over to his side and sat down. His new, long-haired companion held up his fist, his knuckles pointing towards Aoba. Aoba, somewhat confused, raised his fist and assumed he was to bump the other's. He did so, eliciting a laugh and a pat on the back from his new acquaintance.

The meeting began like any first time class would. Haga-san introduced himself to the students both new and old, in typical dorky teacher fashion. Then, the weird side of Haga-san came out.  
"Alright, my veterans, you know what I'm going to ask next." Haga-san said, pointing to the boy to Aoba's side. He stood up.  
"Hey, guys. I'm Koujaku. I like my steak cooked medium-rare, I'm in 11th grade, and I play the guitar."  
Haga-san pointed to the next student to Koujaku's left. He had a near-shocking number of piercings in his face and God knows where else.  
"Sup. I'm Noiz, I'm vegetarian so I'll be eating cold tofurky instead of steak, and I play the flute."  
Koujaku laughed, punching Noiz in the arm as he sat back down. Haga-san interrupted the next student in the row.  
"Aoba!" Haga-san said, turning back to Aoba at the beginning of the line. "I completely forgot about you. Do you know the format for introducing yourself?"  
"Uh, not really..." Aoba laughed nervously, standing up.  
"Name."  
"Uh, I'm Aoba Seragaki."  
"How you like your steak cooked."  
"Um... Medium-rare?"  
"Say it confidently!"  
"Medium-rare!"  
"Year you're in."  
"I'm in 11th grade."  
"And what you play."  
"Uh, I play piano, guitar, and a little bass."  
"Awesome, man. Welcome to the Batcave."  
Aoba sat back down to another pat on the back and a laugh from Koujaku. The rest of the room continued in this format, being all "veterans" in Haga-san's terms.  
The class continued as normal after that, Haga-san giving nothing but announcements and talking about class rules and such. The bell rang before too terribly long, and Aoba got up and walked out, again pulling out his ruined class sheet. As he scanned the wrinkled paper carefully, he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, man! What class you got next?" It was Koujaku, smiling brightly and looking over Aoba's shoulder at his class sheet.


	2. Second Period

Music lightly dancing from his headphones to his inner ear, Aoba followed closely behind Koujaku through the congested hallways of the education wing of the Upper School. As they passed by the clusters of students, Koujaku did Aoba the service of pointing out anybody worth noting.  
"And that guy there is Trip, captain of the football team. If you ask me, I think he's got the hots for _that guy _over there." Koujaku pointed over to Trip's right, to the slender man standing next to him in, oddly enough, a suit. "That's Virus, head of the Yearbook Committee. Watch out for him, he's got more dirt on us than just our yearbook photos. It's best to get friendly with him." The two strolled along at a brisk pace, attempting to avoid the inevitably heavy traffic that would ensue once the bell rang again. "That kid over there?" Koujaku pointed to the bend in the hallway they were fast approaching where a boy with bright, white hair was standing, observing his phone closely. Probably to avoid any unwanted attention. "That's Clear. Kid skipped a grade. Heard he's kinda weird, wouldn't know for myself. Seems like an alright guy, if just a little socially awkward."  
"Who do _we _hang out with? Anybody at all?" Aoba grew worried in asking. Sure, he was glad to have one friend, and a knowledgeable one at that, but he was never good with these kinds of one-on-one situations. Even if it was with total strangers, he held himself differently in group settings. "Yeah, don't worry. You're not stuck with _just _me, haha." Koujaku laughed in response to Aoba's apparently stupid question. The two hit the bend in the hallway and headed to their left, passing by more students than Aoba could remember the faces of. The two stopped by a small clearing in the hall where two other students stood. "Here's our crew." Koujaku said. Aoba slid his headphones down from his ears to his neck. Koujaku gestured to the taller, stone-faced one of the two men in front of them. "This here's Mink. He's kinda quiet, hates everybody. But hey, he hates us just a little bit less, so that's something." Koujaku chuckled and then motioned over to the boy more around Aoba's height with the darker hair, somewhat matching Koujaku's. "This guy here is Ren. He's pretty chill. Thinks he's the boss of our crew, but I tend to argue against that." Koujaku said, bumping fists with Ren and throwing a few fake punches his way. Ren returned their customary blows and turned to the newcomer.  
"Hey, nice to meet you. I'm assuming you're the new stray Koujaku here said he picked up?" Ren said with a small smile, offering his hand to shake.  
"Uh, yeah, I guess I am." Aoba awkwardly laughed in response, grabbing Ren's hand and shaking somewhat hesitantly. He turned to shake Mink's hand, but Mink continued to glare. "Name's Mink. Don't speak unless spoken to and we'll get along."  
"Ugh, Mink, you gotta be such an ass to the new kid? He ain't done anything wrong!" Koujaku said, punching Mink in the arm. Mink didn't react.  
"Um, where's that one guy from band? The one with all the piercings?" Aoba inquired.  
"He's not with us, exactly. Noiz is kind of a loner. Weird vegetarian mindset or something, I'm sure." Koujaku jokingly responded.  
"He's also kind of a fucking brat." Mink said calmly, his expression unchanging.  
"Whoa, man, be cool." Ren said in response to Mink's fairly harsh words.  
"Whatever." Mink coldly shot back.  
"Okay, listen, we can fight over your crush later, you two. The bell's about to ring. We're gonna go so we can avoid the stampede. See you two later." Koujaku interjected, grabbing Aoba by the arm and pulling him along. A short time passed and the two arrived at their second period class. Sitting down in adjacent seats, Aoba looked over to Koujaku a with a somewhat unhappy expression on his face.  
"...You think they like me?"  
"Of course, man. Mink's just an ass. He'll open up sooner or later."  
"And Ren?"  
"I think you two'll get along just fine. He's no Mink."  
"Haha, is that how you gauge everybody? In relation to Mink?" Aoba smiled.  
"Basically." Koujaku laughed before stopping himself. "Wait wait wait, hold up. 10... 9... 8..." Koujaku counted down by the second.  
"What are you doing?" Aoba said with a confused look on his face.  
"Shhhh, I got it this time. 5... 4... 3..."  
The bell rang before he reached zero.  
"Shit! Almost had it that time."  
"What's that?"  
"A goal of mine." 


	3. California

Author's Note: Yay, NoiAo introduction finally. Sorry this one's a bit shorter than the rest, but I feel it serves its purpose well enough, and that's getting Noiz on Aoba's scene. Enjoy!

Algebra II flew by fast enough, Aoba taking quickly to the class. Afterwords, much to his chagrin, Koujaku and Aoba had different periods for History, so the two had to split up for the time being. Koujaku waved Aoba off, promising with his (as Aoba noticed it) dorky smile to catch him during lunch. Aoba attempted his falsely confident stride as he walked down the clogged hallways to his next period. On the way down there, he noticed a familiar face. Or, rather, a familiar back of a head. Noiz from his first period band class was heading in the same general direction, carrying himself with a "I could care less" air about him. Aoba almost expected as much from him, noticing his general style as that of somewhat of a "punk" by many standards. Even with that idea in mind, Aoba quickened his pace and hurried down the hall to catch up with him.  
"Hey, man, you got History for 3rd period?" He inquired, trying to be as friendly in his tone as possible.  
"Mhmm." Noiz responded in an uninterested sounding voice.  
"Uh... You wanna sit together? Koujaku's-"  
"-Got History 5th period, after lunch. I know."  
"So..."  
"Sure."  
Aoba gave a small smile, which Noiz may or may not have actually seen. _Maybe Koujaku would compare him to Mink, _Aoba though to himself, silently laughing. The two entered the room, Noiz, surprisingly enough, holding the door for Aoba. _For a punk, he sure has manners_, Aoba noticed. Noiz walked with his bored waltz of a walk down to the back of the room, sitting in the far right corner. Aoba quickly grabbed the seat to his left. The bell rang soon after, a loud sound of hundreds of collective footsteps entering through the door whenever it opened. The class began with the introduction of the new students, Aoba included. The teacher asked him various questions about his life; Where he went to school previously, what his name was, the usual formalities. Then, the teacher asked where he was from originally. As his lips parted to speak his answer, Noiz bursted out with "California" before Aoba could speak. Silence hit the room. The teacher looked over to Aoba.  
"Is that so?" he asked inquisitively, seeming genuinely curious about life outside of Midorijima.  
"Uh," Aoba hesitated, but decided to roll with it. He only had two years left here, he might as well have a little fun, he figured. "Yeah, I'm not from the island originally."  
"Interesting, interesting! You'll have to tell us a little about culture over there one of these days." the teacher responded with a cheery smile, thoroughly convinced.  
Aoba, after more interrogation from the teacher, Aoba finally returned to his seat next to Noiz. Noiz bumped him with his shoulder, passing him a note under their desks.  
It read "Nice." in surprisingly beautiful handwriting. Aoba looked over to Noiz, who gave a sly grin in return. Aoba wrote underneath the original message "I don't get it." and drew a small face sticking its tongue out. He passed the letter to Noiz, who quickly snatched it from his grip. Noiz opened the small note in his lap and peered down, his eyes scanning Aoba's self-proclaimed chicken scratch handwriting. He scrawled out something on the sheet and passed it back to Aoba. Despite the quick pace of his writing, the gorgeous font remained. "Well, you're from California now" it read.


	4. Lunch

Noiz walked out quickly, maintaining the uncaring sway to his walk. He stopped momentarily, digging through his pockets for something. This gave Aoba just enough time to catch up with him before losing him to the stampede. "Noiz!" Aoba called out, trying to project his voice over the roar of students coming down the halls. "Why don't you come eat lunch with me and the guys?"  
"I eat alone. When I do."  
"I've heard. And that's not cool. Doesn't it get lonely?"  
"I've got music." Noiz said, pulling headphones out of his pocket.  
"You can come listen to music with us for once, c'mon." Aoba grabbed Noiz by the arm and dragged him along the stretch of hallway, Noiz scoffing but not necessarily stopping him in any way. They reached the bend in the hall and made a sharp turn, dodging students left and right. Eventually, after juking down through the heavy traffic, the two arrived at Koujaku's locker, where the trio was waiting for them. Or, more specifically, Aoba, but Koujaku smiled in seeing him dragging Noiz by the arm.  
"Hey, veggie killer!" Koujaku laughed, punching Noiz in the arm as he seemed to do with everybody. Whether it was a sign of affection or otherwise was apparently dependent on the person. We'll just assume it was nice this time by how he was laughing.  
"Hi." Noiz said, seeming a little irritated by being forcibly dragged down the hall through the aforementioned heavy traffic.  
"You gonna be joining us for lunch today, man?" Koujaku inquired, smiling in his dorky fashion.  
"I guess." Noiz shot back, stone-faced as Mink.  
"Hmph, might as well bring along Clear while we're at it." Mink said, visibly bothered.  
"Mink. Quit being an ass." Ren said, glaring at Mink.  
"Guys, guys, guys." Koujaku said, attempting to diffuse the tension. "Let's just head over to the band hall and eat already. We'll argue over who loves Noiz more when we get there."

The five sat down at the end of the band hall in a kind of circular shape. The original 4 of them pulled out sandwiches. Noiz pulled out pita bread and hummus.  
"No veggie genocide today, Noiz?" Koujaku asked jokingly, biting into his sandwich.  
"Hummus is made with chickpeas." Noiz said.  
"And?"  
"That's a vegetable right there."  
"Ah. Alright, so your veggie corpses have just been prepared this time around?"  
"Yes. I like my flesh of plants mashed up and on pita bread. This is my design."  
"Rad." Koujaku laughed.  
Aside from Mink who kept quiet the entire time (apparently this was common for him), the whole group managed to get along fairly well once Noiz opened up and started joking around some himself. Soon enough, he and Koujaku were having laughing fits, complaining that their sides hurt, et cetera. Lunch flew by, the group minus Mink talking about everything from the preparation of hummus to the inevitable first-day essay their English teacher would probably make them write on their summer reading. The bell rang with little warning, indicating to them how fast the time had gone by. The group with their new 5th member had collectively stood up, heading in a cluster towards their English period which they all shared, joking and carrying on as they went.


	5. Fun

Author's Notes: This chapter got a little long in its original rendition, so I split it up into several parts and will be uploading them over the next couple of days. Enjoy!

The next several periods aside from 5th, the group all shared. Dumb luck at its finest - If you count dumb luck as Koujaku putting a good word and a small fee in with Virus. As a result, the next several periods aside from 5th were also significantly more interesting. It was the first day, so other than English where they had to write an essay as expected, the majority of the day was spent tossing paper airplanes and screwing around on their phones and in Noiz's case, his laptop. Sure, nothing of value was achieved and this was probably the only day where such would happen, but they enjoyed it to the best of their abilities regardless.  
After school, the crew split into different directions, all parked in different ends of the student parking lot. Virus, with an additional fee, could have solved that problem too. Aoba sat on a stone bench in front of the M/A/T building, waiting for Tae to pick him up. He would have driven himself today, but no, Tae's errands that are _within walking distance of the house _took priority. And if he were to complain, she'd almost definitely talk his ear off about how she didn't have to walk if she didn't want to, about how she was "too old for that shit," so on and so forth. As he sat, bored out of his skull, Aoba checked his phone to no new messages. Every couple of seconds he would look again, each time yielding the same result. "Y'know, if you wanted to get messages, it would help to send a few." said Noiz, leaning over Aoba's shoulder. Aoba jumped, not realizing until he spoke that Noiz was even there.  
"When did you get here?!" Aoba exclaimed, still a bit startled. He turned to face him as Noiz laughed.  
"Some time. Some day. Y'know."  
"It's a little rude to look at other people's messages without their permission."  
"And what messages have you received so far?" Noiz laughed again in response to Aoba's expression at that remark.  
"For your information, I'm waiting on my poor old grandmother, who is currently an hour and a half late in picking me up, to message me. I'm worried." He was right after all. His phone's clock read 4:37, school ended at 3:00 on the dot.  
"Here." Noiz said, snatching up Aoba's phone. He punched in something on the keypad quickly and pocketed the phone.  
"Hey!" Aoba raised his voice at his phone more or less being stolen now. Noiz began to walk off. "C'mon you, we're going." He said, smirking just out of Aoba's sight. Aoba got up from the stone bench and followed quickly behind.

"What are you getting me into?" Aoba sighed, having been following Noiz down the sidewalk from school for some time now. "I told you, we're gonna go have some fun. I already talked with your 'poor old grandma' for you, you'll be fine." Noiz responded while, oddly enough, smiling somewhat. Aoba hadn't known the guy for very long, but even he could tell smiling wasn't a common occurrence for Noiz. The two continued down the sidewalk, passing by gated community after gated community. They were clearly in the nicer end of Midorijima. One or two more blocks down the street, the two turned to their left into one of the many subdivisions lined up side by side. Noiz sharply turned to the second house on the left. Aoba quickly yet hesitantly followed behind. Noiz tilted a potted plant by the door and reached around underneath it momentarily. He pulled his hand out, gripping something tightly as he let the pot back down. It was a house key. _At least he didn't put it under the mat, _Aoba thought to himself. The blonde quickly fiddled with the lock and stepped inside. Noiz dropped his shoes just inside the door, looking back to Aoba to do the same.  
"Wow, this your place?" Aoba asked. It was gorgeous, both on the outside and within. Granite counter-tops and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, ornate tile flooring, beautiful chandelier above the dining table – Your typical rich kid house, which is funny because Noiz sure doesn't dress the part.  
"No, we literally just broke in here. Didn't you see me smash that window and jump in?" Noiz said sarcastically, laughing.  
"I just- It was a formality and I- You're a punk, y'know that?" Aoba found it difficult to get the words out quick enough to shoot back a response effectively.  
"Punk is what I aim for, hun." Noiz fired, despite Aoba not putting up much of a fight himself. Aoba also found it difficult to figure out if the "hun" part was sarcastic or not. _God, what am I thinking? Of course it's sarcastic! _Aoba thought. He would find himself arguing this with himself for the rest of his evening with Noiz. Yes, his entire _evening _with Noiz.

The night was interestingly simple. Noiz grabbed up the remote on the coffee table in front of the television, turned to the nearest movie channel (horror movies, no less) and plopped down on the couch. He stared at Aoba who had a dumbfounded look on his face until he joined him. Noiz literally brought him here to watch movies - Without asking, in what Aoba understands to be typical Noiz fashion. Aoba, by the end of the night, would end up staying for 4 cheesy horror movies and Noiz's microwaved home-cooking for dinner. And although he wouldn't admit it for the first week after that night, Aoba did, in fact, fell asleep on Noiz's shoulder halfway through the 3rd movie.

...

"So... Uh, I guess this is goodbye. Thanks for the fun time." Aoba said awkwardly, standing just outside Noiz's doorway.  
"Thanks for tagging along." Noiz handed Aoba's phone back to him.  
"And for the leftovers. I didn't know you cooked." Aoba held a warm Tupperware container full of home-made lasagna made by his unlikely new friend.  
"Well, now you do." Noiz smiled softly. A rare sight yet again.  
As Aoba began to turn and leave, Noiz put a hand on his shoulder.  
"Hey. Before you go." Noiz stepped out into the cool night air with Aoba. Now standing almost against Noiz, Aoba began to blush. "Y-Yeah?"  
Noiz leaned in and gently put his other hand on the back of Aoba's head, running his fingers through Aoba's hair as he pressed his lips against theirs. Aoba's face grew hot against the cool Autumn breeze. Aoba's arms began to lift, almost subconsciously and began to wrap around Noiz's neck. Their embraced deepened for a moment before a loud shout of Noiz's name could be heard coming from the back room of his house. The door was hanging wide open, after all. "NOIZ. CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR, YOU'RE LETTING THE AIR CONDITIONING OUT." His mother yelled from her room, loud enough to be heard clearly outside. The two separated. "Uh, I gotta go. See you in band tomorrow."


	6. Covered

AN: Sorry the updates are taking longer than originally intended. I'm trash. Anyway, here's Chapter 5 Part 2/Chapter 6/whatever you wanna call this. Enjoy!

The next morning was still new and exciting to Aoba, the schedule rotating daily to keep things interesting. The major difference today being he had a crew of sorts to spend time with rather than wander the halls alone. A welcomed change of pace, without a doubt. Band came 3rd period today, the gang all meeting up in the band hallway, standing in a circle and conversing over what quickly became the usual. Classes, grades, gossip (although the guys would never call it such an effeminate term in their eyes), Mink not uttering a word and Noiz buried in his iPod the entire time. The circle went Koujaku, Aoba, Noiz, Mink, and Ren clockwise.

After a few minutes of conversation, another bandmate at the opposite end of the hall screamed "BATCAVE!" at the top of their lungs and part of the group (namely Aoba, Koujaku, and Noiz) fragmented and headed into the Upper School band room, Mink and Ren heading off to their Art period. Everybody grabbed their seats, Koujaku and Aoba sitting by the guitar and bass amps, Noiz sitting in the woodwinds section. Before Haga-san began the day's announcements, Noiz gave Aoba a quick look from the winds section and smirked. Aoba blushed lightly, remembering the night before. Noiz, seeing Aoba's reaction, laughed quietly to himself (satisfied, no doubt) and turned back around.  
"Alright, minions" Haga-san began. "We have a concert first week of October. My old people, you know what this means."  
All the veterans in the room collectively screamed "CHAMBER CONCERT!"  
Aoba looked over to Koujaku, leaned closer and whispered, "What?"  
"Chamber concert, man!" Koujaku said. "We pick the music, we write it out, we do everything. Haga-san just kinda sits back and watches his minions do their work."  
Aoba laughed at that term, finding himself proud to be one of the minions.  
"Oh, cool. So we just play whatever?"  
"Kinda. We have to pick a theme, THEN we play whatever."  
"What's this year's theme?"  
"We're about to find out."  
After all the chatter had quieted down, Haga-san began to speak again. "This year's theme, my monkeys, is..."  
The entire roomed tensed up in anticipation.  
"Free-form."  
The entire room quickly grew loud again, everybody clearly excited for the technically theme-less concert, meaning this year they did, in fact, just play whatever.  
"Alright, minions. Quiet down, quiet down." Haga-san continued. "If you guys have suggestions, which you no doubt do, come see me in my office. Break." Haga-san got up and headed to his personal cave, as he called it, and sat down, taking one suggestion after another for the rest of the period.

After band and 4th period, the gang met back up in the band hall and sat down in their circle for lunch and continued with their previous conversation from the morning.

Lunch went by quickly and the group began to pack up their mess and head to the next class. Aoba and Noiz were the last to finish, having made the biggest messes of the lot of them. The rest of the crew, being the lazy teenagers they were, left the two to finish the cleanup. The tension was somewhat high, Aoba still a bit embarrassed about the previous night and Noiz apparently indifferent to it all. Finally, as the last bit of trash was thrown away, Aoba broke the silence between the two.  
"Hey, uh... Thanks."  
"For what?"  
"The fun time last night."  
"Didn't you already thank me?"  
"I mean, yeah, but like-"  
"I know. You're welcome."  
"And then before I left, I mean, I just-"  
"I know. You're welcome."  
"Wait, what?"  
"Haha, just making sure you were paying attention." Noiz laughed at Aoba's reaction. Aoba continued.

"And I was just thinking maybe we could like, do that again sometime maybe?"  
"Which part? The movies? The falling asleep on me? Or maybe the goodbyes?" Noiz smirked. Aoba blushed, knowing full well what he meant by "goodbyes."  
"Well, uh, like..." Aoba hesitated, using every filler word he had in his vocabulary. "Maybeallofit." He quickly mumbled under his breath.  
"Ha, sure."  
"Wait, really?"  
"Did I stutter?"  
"It's just you're very sarcastic sounding, y'know."  
"I know, I try."  
"Punk."  
"You like it." Noiz's cocky smile grew across his face again. Aoba punched him in the arm and huffed off to class as if Noiz didn't have next period with him.  
"Y'know I have next period with you ri-"  
"I KNOW." Aoba blushed slightly, frustrated that he couldn't get away from Noiz when he wanted to.  
"So, when were you thinking?"  
"Thinking what?"  
"When you wanted to rob that bank."  
"What?!"  
"When you wanted to hang out again, smarty."  
"I dunno..." Aoba blushed again, continually getting toyed with by Noiz in a way he didn't exactly mind but still was frustrated with. He was like putty in Noiz's hands.  
"Alright, today works. I'll meet you in the parking lot."  
"But Tae will want me home by fi-"  
"I got it covered. Just wait by your car."  
He had no excuses now. Tae did gave him the car to drive today, but now he was at the mercy of Noiz's shenanigans, who probably got Tae's number when he swiped his phone the day before. He probably had it covered. Probably.


	7. Chemistry

AN: This chapter's dedicated to FF user and Clear fanatic, Spartaku. Go check him out. He's a total nerdlord and writes some mean stories.

Post lunch, Aoba continued his flustered huffing and stomping around from class to class, pretending to not notice Noiz following closely behind. The two split off last period of the day (Koujaku not accounting for Noiz joining the gang this year when making his "transaction" with Virus), Noiz having Chem Honors and Aoba being in regulars with the two classes being in separate rooms. Today though, today was going to be different.

Aoba walked in to the classroom and headed toward his now "usual" (as of yesterday) spot in between Koujaku and Ren. As he slid his bag down the table and reached to pull his chair out from the desk, he noticed something, or rather somebody, was already there. A shorter girl, blonde, glasses and wearing her hair in a ponytail. Aoba looked over to Koujaku with a confused look. Koujaku scratched his head and laughed somewhat awkwardly. Aoba resumed his earlier huffing and puffing, grabbed his bag, and moved back a row, frustrated with the treason he had been faced within the first week of school.

The only open seat was next to Clear, the kid who had skipped a grade. Aoba sat his bag down beside the desk and took a seat. The two remained silent, Clear probably picking up on Aoba's frustration. The class was still noisy, being the last period of the day. According to some chatter overheard by Aoba from the rows behind him, work was going to be relatively light today – just lab practice. The class headed back to the chem room's laboratory shortly thereafter and the students paired off into twos. Ren and Mink in one group, Koujaku and the blonde girl in another, basically eliminating all of Aoba's partnering options except for, you guessed it, Clear.  
"Uh... Y-You wanna partner up, Aoba-san?" Clear said from Aoba's side. Before Aoba could begin to wonder how Clear knew his name, the teacher called for him to hurry up and make his decision.  
"Oh. Uh. Sure, man." Aoba responded somewhat hesitantly, not wanting to shoot the poor kid down.

The two sat down at a lab station and followed through the instructions, all of it being fairly simple stuff. The conversation, though, was near nonexistent. The lab work ended and the class headed back into the main room, Clear and Aoba returning to their seats.  
"A-Aoba-san?"  
"Yes?" Aoba responded in a slightly angry tone, eyeballing Koujaku as he proceeded to get touchy with the new girl in the group.  
"What do you like to do?"  
"Hmm?"  
"Outside of school, y'know, like... games and TV and stuff."  
"Oh. I dunno, I don't watch TV much anymore, play a fair number of games though."  
"That's cool..." Clear said somewhat nervously, obviously lacking confidence in himself around Aoba. After a period of silence, Clear began again, "...Have you ever watched Trek?"  
"Hmm?" Aoba repeated.  
"Star Trek."  
"Ah. No, not yet. Seems interesting enough." Aoba leaned in and whispered "But don't tell Koujaku I said that."  
"Oh, he's not a nerd like us?" Clear said before looking up to the row in front of them, Koujaku's arm firmly around his new acquaintance. "Ah, guess not."  
"Nerd?!" Aoba asked as if he didn't hear it correctly the first time.  
"W-Well, I mean- It's just like- Y'know we-" Clear stuttered, trying to find the right words in fear of Aoba's reaction.  
"It's whatever, man. I guess I am. Clearly not cool enough for somebody like Koujaku anymore."  
"Well, taking into consideration you don't have boobs, I think there's more factors in effect here than just how cool you may be, Aoba-san."  
"Thanks?" Aoba said curiously in response, not sure how much of a compliment that may or may not have been.  
"Anytime! I'm Clear, by the way. I don't think we've properly introduced ourselves before." Clear said with a smile, slowly growing accustomed to speaking with Aoba.  
"Aoba Seragaki. You new here too?"  
"Nope! I've been here since 7th grade, skipped over 8th into 9th, and now we're here!"  
"Wow, you must have some brains up there."  
"Hence why I dubbed us 'nerds.' You don't skip a grade and marathon seasons of The Next Generation in a week without earning that title." Clear laughed playfully, trying to enforce the idea that Aoba being a bit on the nerdy side himself was a good thing.  
"I guess so. With that being said, I guess I should embrace this feeling and watch Trek then?"  
"Definitely! It's online, not hard to find at all."  
"Alright, I'll look into it when I get home."  
"Actually, Aoba-san, i-if you'd like, you can come over for dinner and we can watch it at my place."  
Aoba hesitated for a moment, remembering Noiz's proposals from lunch.  
"Sure, why not?" Aoba said.


End file.
